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If there is a valid criticism of this site’s work, its our paucity of recordings of NYC’s vibrant modern and avant jazz community. We have been steadfast (particularly since EricPH joined the crew) in our documentation of the local noise scene, which has on occasion crossed the line into jazz (Zs at Bowery) but when it comes to the legendary performers playing in our midst, we’ve been remiss. But what we experienced and captured on Saturday at Trans-Pecos should go a long way towards rectifying the slight.

Matthew Shipp has been a fixture in the NYC jazz scene for more than three decades. His solo work has been lauded since he became a regular in the downtown new jazz clubs in the early 90s for his unique expressive freeform style. He’s also been a collaborative performer most notably as a longtime member of the David S. Ware group. My first experience seeing Shipp live was at the old Knitting Factory on Leonard Street in the late 90s at a show where he teamed with frequent partner bassist (and current Trans-Pecos curator) William Parker.

Bobby Kapp too has a long and storied history in NYC jazz that dates even further back, as Kapp first came onto the scene in the 1960s, most notably as the drummer for the great and recently-departed Gato Barbieri’s on his first album, the 1967 classic In Search of the Mystery. Kapp’s lengthy musical journey now finds him in San Miguel De Allende, the artistic center of Mexico City. In between, Bobby Kapp has appeared on countless albums, played on several continents, and indeed has been recognized by the US State Department officially as the “Ambassador of Jazz”.

Matthew Shipp and Bobby Kapp first collaborated for Kapp’s 2014 EP Themes 4 Transmutation in a quartet. But earlier this year, the two met as a duo for an improvisation session that became Cactus, an album ultimately released on Northern Spy Records on September 16. The following day, this Trans-Pecos performance operated as the official CD release event. But instead of attempting to recreate the Cactus session, the duo instead performed a nearly fifty-minute new improvisational session that the artists have entitled “Live at Trans Pecos”. The piece offers a unique opportunity to experience the live creation of once-only music by two jazz legends. The ability of Shipp to construct melodies and then meticulously descontruct them is matched by Kapp’s profound touch on the drums — the on-the-dime movement from subtle taps on the cymbals to crashing snares perfectly in sync with Shipp’s journey. I’ve now listened to this piece four times and I’m still flabbergasted at the ability of these two artists to work so well in tandem and produce such breathtakingly moving music.

I recorded this set with the Neumann LD’s mounted in front of the stage to capture the drums in stereo and mixed with two separate feeds of the piano mics. The sound quality is superb. Enjoy!

On a night that included incredible experimental music of many stripes — including Chris Forsyth’s set with Loren Connors, and the last Secret Project Robot set ever from People of the North (coming soon), it made perfect sense that the evening’s middle act was a free jazz trio of some of the most interesting and well regarded players we’ve seen in a while. The trio of Colin Fisher, Mike Pride and Carl Testa added a different and welcome dimension, their all-improvisational jam’s headier aspects brought to the fore by the light show behind them. Each of these musicians has a deep resume of appearances with luminaries that cross the jazz and experimental rock realms, and you could feel the breadth of that experience at work in this piece. Anyone who reads our too-infrequent jazz posts on this site knows that our enthusiasm for the genre far outstrips our ability to comment on it, so don’t take my word for it — hear this one for yourself.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK4V microphones at the stage lip (per the picture). The sound quality is outstanding. Enjoy!

Pill seized our attention from the first time we saw them. Signed to Dull Tools for their first EP last year, since then they’ve been bringing their unholy marriage of free jazz, noise rock and feminist punk to haunts across Bushwick and Williamsburg, where you’re still best able, in this city, to find people who’re willing to “get” something that’s not always an easy listen. This band is a direct retort to the “nothing interesting happens in New York” crowd, a screeching, howling, shapeshifting rejoinder to anyone who pretends that all “Brooklyn music” means these days is low-stakes, people playing it safe. Frontwoman Veronica Torres hurls herself into the band’s sound, turning the room into her stage as she takes her final number out in the crowd, and while we’ve seen her do it before, it never fails to get everyone’s attention. Befitting the band’s rapid evolution, fully half of this show at Palisades featured new (to us) songs that didn’t make it to the EP or their last show, including “Vagabonds,” “Fetish Queen,” “Hot Glue” and “Medicine.” Of them, “Hot Glue” might have been my favorite of the bunch, with its consistent meld between John Campolo’s atmospheric guitars and Ben Jaffe’s sax, or “Medicine,” which features an almost-conventional chorus. But at this point in their career, really, seeing Pill is really about seeing Pill, experiencing the totality of the band for what it is, not one specific song or another. It’s the kind of experience that makes you grateful to be here.

I recorded this set with Schoeps MK22 open cardiod microphones at the stage lip plus a soundboard feed. The sound quality is excellent. Enjoy!

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